For many reasons, consumer captured video programs are often boring to view, compared to professionally-captured programs. Among these reasons are unprofessional scene changes, and "unmodifiable" camera capture operations. In present motion imaging systems, the image capture media exists essentially for storage of captured sound and images. For example, analog video tape-based camcorders capture sound and images and store them on a video tape at video rates. Consequently, the video tape is used merely to record the vast amount of sound and images that constitute the video signal stream.
Even in more recent digital video tape systems, the image capture media is used only for recording the data which constitutes the video stream. The tape cassette may include a provision for a separate solid state memory, but that memory is not used to capture the continuous video stream. Its purpose, to date, is to index and categorize the video stream recorded on the tape.
In connection with electronic still imaging systems, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,477,264, it is known to capture and store images in a removable still image storage device, which is also loaded with enhancement files for effecting the operation of the system. A type of enhancement file contained in the still image storage device comprises pre-existing image data files, i.e., files with images not captured by the camera system. Such files are accompanied by code which instructs the camera on how to merge the pre-existing image files with those captured by the camera. In this manner graphic overlays and text can be superimposed on the captured still images by the camera to generate, e.g., a birthday message superimposed over the captured image. Proper execution of such a feature might include a user interface for selection of pre-existing image and overlay combinations, and also a viewfinder which helps the user to compose the captured image so as to complement the selected overlay.
To date, however, in motion capture systems, pre-recorded data is not used to enhance and improve the quality of content of the consumer-captured motion video content. While clearly the same video tape could be pre-recorded with material recorded from broadcast TV or other professional sources, these two types of video streams (consumer and professional) would remain separate and distinct on the capture medium, and do not act upon each other. It would be desirable to have a simple way, at least for the user, to achieve professional caliber in amateur motion video sequences, particular at the transition between scenes.